Steven Gerrard refuses to blame VAR for Aston Villa's FA Cup exit to Man United

Steven Gerrard has refused to blame the use of VAR for Aston Villa's 1-0 defeat to Manchester United in the FA Cup third round.

An early Scott McTominay goal settled the game at Old Trafford on Monday, but Villa were left aggrieved by a decision to disallow a Danny Ings goal during the second half.

There was confusion as to whether Jacob Ramsey was adjudged to have blocked Edinson Cavani or whether he had been penalised for doing it from an offside position.

Nevertheless, after a lengthy delay, the goal was disallowed, but Gerrard has insisted that he wanted to move past the decision.

Speaking to BBC Sport, Gerrard said: "How long have you got? The officials took three and a half minutes to settle that one. They have looked at two or three things in it.

"When VAR is there and they make a decision you have to accept it. There is nothing you can do to change it. The easy way out is to blame luck and the officials, we won't do that."

On the performance itself, the Englishman added: "The lads gave a lot in terms of performance but we need to learn and close the gap from a performance that was nearly good enough. We dominated for large parts but we were not ruthless enough.

"I've seen enough tonight in terms of the performance to know that I can get to where I want to get to but we need to learn and learn quickly. We need to be more ruthless moving forward, defending crosses we need to be tighter.

"We cannot be having people with free headers in our six yard box. It is quite clear what we need to iron out and we will do it in the short term."

Villa and United renew acquaintances on Saturday evening when they square off in the Premier League.